


Birds of a Feather (are very rarely birds)

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: MFMM Flashfic Challenge, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: Phryne prides herself on her unerring knack for recognising the reason for a person’s daemon, however obvious or incongruous it might seem at first glance.A daemon AU for the MFMM flashfic challenge
Relationships: Phryne Fisher & Jack Robinson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 112
Collections: Miss Fisher's Flashfic Challenge Heat 2





	Birds of a Feather (are very rarely birds)

Phryne prides herself on her unerring knack for recognising the reason for a person’s daemon, however obvious or incongruous it might seem at first glance. Her own, Emilion, is not what people expect--his glossy black coat and sleek whiskers are right, of course, but people are always startled that he is a rat, rather than something more feline. 

The first time she meets Jack Robinson, in Lydia Andrews’ bathroom, she’s not terribly surprised to see a dog at his heels. She _is_ slightly surprised that it is not a powerful Alsatian type, tenacious and stubborn and ready to chase down wayward children in Collingwood, as most policemen’s daemons are. (She’d known more than a few Alsatians; sometimes she thinks Emilion settled as a rat out of necessity.) Lisetta is a scrappy brown terrier, one ear folded and one not, and with an attitude to match; it doesn’t take long to realise that that is _precisely_ what this dour detective-inspector needs. 

“Should I be concerned?” she asks coyly, that first meeting, as Emilion scampers onto her shoulder. “A terrier and a rat?”

Lisetta snorts, and the policeman’s lips tug slightly in a downward motion she thinks might very well be a smile. 

Their paths cross, ten, twelve times in her first few weeks in Melbourne, and each time she finds herself studying the man and his daemon, uncovering some new element of this strange not-quite-enigma; there’s a keen intelligence in both of them, a determination. He is straightforward, he is, but there is something unsettling all the same, as if she could find layer upon layer upon layer of equally honest revelations. Emilion, for his part, takes to Lisetta with surprising ease; more than one meeting at City South ends with the daemons curled side-by-side as their people discuss the case, never quite touching. It becomes the norm, until Phryne stops thinking about it quite so much.

And then they are investigating some missing jewelry, and have every reason to believe the missing pieces are hidden in a pipe too small for human hands; it is one of the many uses of a rat daemon though, and Emilion is gone before Phryne can even ask. She is startled when Lisetta follows him down, though the fit is tight, though perhaps she ought not to be. Jack must read some of it on her face though, because he cocks an eyebrow and tilts his head, leaning against the nearby pillar.

“What do you think we did, before you?” he asks, amusement lacing his voice.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Jack,” she replies. “But I doubt it was half so much fun.”


End file.
